


Forward Slash

by gertrudeabernathy



Series: Keyboard [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Masturbation, Relationship Negotiation, Romance, Sweet, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 20:37:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/803000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gertrudeabernathy/pseuds/gertrudeabernathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Such an old school Sterek story! I have wanted to prune the structure for ages, but the title reference was in the excised bit, so now it has a new title!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forward Slash

**Author's Note:**

> This is the old story 'Tab' renovated again, with a slightly clearer timeline, I hope.

“Oh, stop it, both of you - all of you!” shouted Stiles. “I am FINE, and even if my arm had been ripped OFF, it wouldn’t change the fact that it was an ACCIDENT that Jackson didn’t cause ON PURPOSE because that is what an ACCIDENT is, so stop - looming - and growling at each other!” He went to shove Derek back with two hands on his chest, but couldn’t hide a tiny flinch at the pain in his wrist. Scott grunted, “Idiot!” and punched Jackson in the shoulder reproachfully. 

“He was trying to trick me - that was the whole point - so how was I meant to know he was about to plow us both into the ground?” snarled Jackson at Derek, ignoring Scott completely.

“Is it actually sprained?” said Lydia from her seat on the porch, with the foam separators still between her toes, while Allison paused with the polish brush in mid-air. The other wolves were off running in the woods. Lydia sat up taller. “Show.” 

Stiles grimaced, but he held up his right hand and demonstrated that he could bend the wrist frontwards and backwards, and wiggle the fingers, and then that he could hold the arm still and bend his hand a little from side to side - which last movement clearly hurt so much that his carefully-maintained expression of annoyance settled into an unconvincing rictus. Lydia snorted - which earned her a brief scowl from Derek.

“Why do you even bother lying after all this time?” asked Derek, turning back to Stiles.”You’re even more of an idiot than he is!"

“Oh for god's sake - tear each other limb from limb about NOTHING then, see if I care. I’ve had enough, I’m going home.” And Stiles stalked off to grab his backpack off the porch.

Jackson made it there ahead of him, picking it up and obviously ready to carry it for him. They looked cautiously at each other, till Jackson spoke.

“Sorry. Is it bad?” 

“It’s nothing, really. I zigged when you thought I was going to zag. I’m good.”

“You were good enough to frustrate him, and he wasn’t good enough to stop you without hurting you,” said Derek ominously.

“ACCIDENT, Derek! You’ll find it in the dictionary, between - “

“Absolute and Asshole,” supplied Lydia.

“No-one is being an asshole here, except possibly you, Lyds. I am fine and I am going home to ice my stupid wrist which doesn’t even hurt that much, and to do my homework, now that I have proven once again that I am too fragile to even train with you, for which humiliating lesson, I thank you ALL.”

“I’d be happy to train you,” said Lydia brightly. “I’d have you doing a perfect mani-pedi in under a week.”

“I’m going.” His wrist seemed to be mysteriously connected to his pride, because now it really hurt.

“You shouldn’t drive, not by yourself,” said Allison matter-of-factly. “You might find the joint stiffens up, or hurts a lot more in five minutes than it does now, and you can’t steer properly one-handed. And sorry, it’s not negotiable.” Jackson looked to Lydia for confirmation and in a second he had unclipped Stiles’ keys from the loop on his bag, and thrown them to Scott.

"Fuck!" shouted Stiles, and stamped his foot.

“Stiles - are you - like - VEXED? Did you just …?” started Jackson, then stopped, as everyone glared at him at once.

“Don’t drive, Stiles,” pleaded Scott. “She’s right.”

“Yes, PLEASE DO side with Allison, Scott; that just puts the icing on the fucking cake. No offence, Allison, but I just want to go.” 

“None taken.”

Derek moved, taking the keys out of Scott’s hand, and Stiles’ bag from Jackson. “I’ll drive you home in the Jeep, OK? I can run home through the woods in ten minutes.” And he was looking at Stiles, his shoulders maybe a little tighter than usual, and his expression intent. Ha, thought Stiles, so Derek knows I am getting angrier and angrier because I am embarrassed and my wrist hurts, and now he is getting frightened that we are about to get into a stupid fight with each other about this. He is bracing himself, so he will be able to bear me shouting at him that he is an idiot too and that I hate him.

He felt instantly sobered. It was unforgiveable to deliberately hurt Derek, or to leave him worrying and blaming himself for hours, if it could be prevented. 

“OK, yes, fine,” said Stiles stiltedly, fighting for actual calm, not just the appearance of it. “See you later, guys, thanks.” There was a delayed and disbelieving chorus of goodbyes and get-wells, and Derek and Stiles started walking back to the turnaround on the other side of the house where the Jeep was parked.

“OK. That was weird,” said Jackson to the others, as Derek vanished around the corner. “Was he doing a werewolf Jedi Mind Trick, Scott?”

“Are you asking me, because your point is that I am a nerd, and only a nerd knows Star Wars?" asked Scott. "Because, if that was your point, then you just proved that you’re a nerd, too.”

“Derek wasn’t doing anything, Jackson,” said Lydia. “That was Stiles. That was him demonstrating how to pay attention, so that people who can’t heal themselves don’t get hurt.”

\--------

It was a pretty quiet drive.

“You aren’t too fragile to train with us,” said Derek abruptly, as he pulled up outside the Sheriff’s house.

“Good, I agree,” said Stiles cautiously.

“I am just going to bring your bag in, and get that icepack on, is that good?”

“It’s going to be whatever is in the freezer, there’s no special athletic thing in there.”

“So I can look forward to you smelling of frozen peas, then?”

Stiles peered at Derek sideways and started laughing. He put his good hand on Derek’s cheek and stared at his face.

“What?”

“Scott doesn’t believe me when I tell him you are funny. I was looking for something to tell him to look for, so he will notice when you are doing it.”

Derek didn’t even need to roll his eyes for Stiles to start protesting. “Scotty has a great sense of humour, you know!”

“Yeah - he really doesn’t.”

“He picked me for his best friend, didn’t he?” Derek let their gazes lock for a second so that Stiles could absorb his ‘I rest my case’-face, then got out and started around the jeep. 

“Asshole,” Stiles muttered, grinning, before his door opened and Derek was turning his face up and kissing him on the mouth.

“Mnnh, oh god, Derek, not out in the street, what are you - “ and Derek pulled back, rueful but half-smiling. 

“No-one saw. Come on then.”

They went straight into the kitchen, where Derek started rummaging through the freezer, while Stiles ducked under his arm, and hooked out a juicebox for himself. He sat on the kitchen table, struggling with the little straw and wincing.

Derek saw, and took the box out of his hand. He wrapped a dry kitchen towel from the sink once around Stiles’ wrist, and after banging the smallest sealed bag of frozen stuff he could find - green beans - on the table a few times to loosen up the contents, he pressed the bag to the cloth on the back of Stiles’ hand and wrapped the towel around it again and tucked it in securely. It looked neat, like a properly-done thing. It stayed in place. Then Derek stuck the little straw in the juicebox and held it up, and Stiles drank it in one go, breathing through his nose.

“Thank you, Nurse Derek.”

“Can I kiss you now?”

“You MAY, as long as you promise not to try anything nasty with tongues, because I am saving that for my prom date, whoever he turns out to be.”

“Of course.” 

He tasted of apple juice, and smelt of melting beans and detergent and his own sweat and pain and amusement, and Derek held himself back for about five seconds before he was dragging that long body against himself with a hand in the back pocket of Stiles’ jeans, and licking into that soft mouth, nosing at his neck, drinking in reassurance, and feeling warm and a little dizzy and relieved, as Stiles held him in with a firm grip on his hair. 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They fitted together, alternately yin and yang, because there was no set pattern about which was which. They had sort of agreed on some ground rules months ago, just after the beginning - agreed, in that Derek had stated firmly what he thought those rules should be, and after half an hour, Stiles had stopped arguing and frowning and teasing, because Derek had begged him to. Stiles didn’t want anything to be off the table, despite their rocky start. “I know you won’t hurt me, and we nearly get killed every three weeks - I want to do EVerything you want to do, Sourwolf, come on, you can’t say no to this gorgeous ass, can you?” Derek snorted and shuddered and argued back at first, but eventually he had leant in and said quietly into one sharp shoulder, “Please, Stiles, just say that what I said is OK, because I really need to you to. I can’t do this at all if I don’t know that there are some rules to protect you and what you are, so just, please, say that you agree, and don’t kill me by making me leave and never touch you again, not now. Don’t do it to me.”

So the Sourwolf Constitution had come into effect. It stated:

Until such time as Stiles is 18 (legal reasons) AND has told his Dad that he and Derek are together (personal reasons):  
1\. At least one layer of clothing stays on, top and bottom, both parties.  
2\. Neither party comes. (1st Amendment: Except if they do, and then the rule is, no come on skin outside the relevant undergarment.)

The second rule in its initial form had lasted for just over a month, as they worked out each other's rhythms. Some days they barely touched, but Stiles learned to listen for the moments when Derek was wholly focused on his scent, and to give him time. Derek knew that some days, Stiles would "forget" his Adderall, so that while he read his book for English, or they watched something together, Derek would have to wrap himself around Stiles on the couch to physically hold him still, so that he could concentrate. But because it was too hard to predict his own reactions to seemingly innocuous activities with Derek, Stiles eventually had to insist on the addition of their first amendment.

(Of course, now, for the rest of his life, every time anyone mentioned freedom of religion, Stiles would think of Derek pressing him up against an old tree out in the freezing woods at night, licking and sucking frantically at his neck, and snuffling up great draughts of his scent, and sighing and whispering his name, and gripping Stiles’ denim-clad ass so hard, and pressing, rolling, pressing against him over and over until Stiles couldn’t take it anymore and he cursed and trembled and Derek was right on the border of losing control, and his fingernails flicked into claws for a moment and just the sharpest points, the tips, went through Stiles’ jeans and briefs and barely pricked the skin, tiny flares of pain so minor they were only really another, only-just-too-much kind of stimulation, and then there was no way, no way Stiles could NOT come, and come hard he did, arching like a bow, and then he was gasping, helpless, crimson-cheeked, collapsing and simultaneously feeling like he could leap a tall building in a single bound. 

And, he would also always remember Derek’s elation crashing down, him saying, “Forgive me, forgive me, I - Stiles - I didn’t mean - I should have stopped, I forgot the rules, I forgot everything, Stiles, did I scare you?” And Derek was distraught, his careful accommodation with himself and his past was all messed up, and it was so obvious that his crazy boyfriend was mentally preparing some apocalyptic remedy that probably involved him cutting off his own hands or setting himself on fire that Stiles had to smother his first impulse to laugh. Instead he kissed him all over his anxious face and said, “We just need a little tiny amendment, and then it will all be good again in the sexy land of the Stilinski-Hales.” Derek listened, then he was recovering himself, saying “Yes, that sounds - yes,” and having a little rest, lying on the soft ground with his head in Stiles’ (sticky) lap, and breathing slowly until he was sated, even high maybe, from the concentrated scent.)

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unsurprisingly, when Derek finally made it home on foot through the woods, the others were all gone. (This could have been because he had spent more than an hour slowly typing the end of an English paper from Stiles' dictation, while the author changed his mind ten times and argued with himself and forgot to hold his wrist still and waved his arms when he was making a point and yelled from how much it hurt and then laughed.) Derek wandered into his dark kitchen, half-hungry. He dug a few oddments out of the glowing fridge and organized a sort of snack, and then he felt like heading to bed, though it was really too early. He woke up hours later in pitch darkness, and grabbed for his buzzing phone on the bedside table. 

“I’m going to KILL you!” said Stiles’ hushed, muffled voice.

“But very quietly, it seems.”

“It’s 1 AM, Mr Kissy-face Gropy-Pants, and what do you notice?”

“I notice that you have woken me up to threaten me.”

“I can’t sleep, can I?”

Derek changed gears. He was whispering too. “Is your wrist hurting you a lot?”

“Oh it’s great, it hardly even gives me a twinge, unless I HAVE TO JERK OFF.”

“Ah. So shouldn’t you be killing Jackson?”

“Jackson didn’t give me this BONER that has been around since before dinner because I CAN’T GET RID OF IT.”

“I’m glad Jackson didn’t - do that.”

“Sshhh.”

Derek lay there in bed, waiting and rolling his eyes at the ceiling.

“It’s OK. Dad was just starting to snore and sometimes he wakes himself up.”

“Can’t you use your left hand? Or a pillow or something?”

“Left hand, no, genius. I tried and it made it worse.” There was a silence. “I could lie in your lap and use your left thigh, if you climbed in the window, and you were too proper to jerk me off yourself.”

“My left thigh.”

“Mmnh. So warm.”

“You - you went with the pillow thing.”

“Derek.”

“All right. Hanging up now.”

“No, please don’t hang up! Please talk to me!”

Suddenly there was that high, frantic note in Stiles’ voice that Derek responded to with instant, anxious compliance. It was strange. He didn’t think Stiles knew when he was doing it. It was odd how someone who so often described himself as “in agony” or “miserable” or “suffering” so rarely sounded like he was anything of the kind.

“Just tell me something - oh - something nice.”

“Something about you?”

“It doesn’t have to be. Anything.”

“I found some frozen beans in my freezer tonight, and I cooked them and ate them with a bit of mayo.”

“You did not.”

“I did. They were months old but they were good. I wanted to smell them defrosting.”

“Oh, Derek - you're so - aah!” (Long pause, weird muffled thud.) “Sorry, I dropped the phone when I was throwing The Derek’s Left Thigh Memorial Pillow off the bed. Because now it’s a bit gross, you see. But it’s only temporary. I’ll wash it and re-install it. It’s my new favourite.”

“My god, this has to stop. We have to go back to sticking to the rules, Stiles, or seriously, I am going to go insane.”

“I know. Me too. I was thinking about your hand on my dick before I called you and I thought, if he really did it, if he came back over, and I talked him into touching me, and at the end I pushed up his shirt and came on his beautiful stomach, I would never make it through a school day again. I would just be trembling and waiting all the time to get by myself so I could think about it and jerk off for the tenth time that day.”

“I don’t think it would really be that bad, but I am glad if you are happy to wait just a bit longer.”

“I can wait, Derek, because we ARE about - that, but we aren’t JUST about that. It’s really OK. I want you to be happy too!”

“Stiles.”

“Yeah?”

“Sleep, remember?”

“Oh right! Good night.”

“Good night.”

And now Derek lay there wide awake, half-smiling at the darkness, thinking about the smell of beans, and about how everything was (at least temporarily) back under control.


End file.
